


Ave Atque

by lferion



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Watchers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-26
Updated: 2012-07-26
Packaged: 2017-11-10 18:12:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/469197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam Pierson gets a memo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ave Atque

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cher/gifts).



> This will make more sense if one is acquainted with the S1 final episode "The Hunters" and "To Be" and "Not to Be", the final episodes of S6.
> 
> Many thanks to the Usual Suspects for encouragement and beta-duties.

"No."

A cry from the heart, in a whisper.

"Not Darius." Shocked hazel eyes looked up at her, Pierson's ridiculously young face stricken. "He never left Holy Ground. How? How could he be taken?"

The other researchers were already gathering around, some of the older ladies looking daggers at her. Pierson was a favorite with them. Researchers had amazing noses for news, and unerring instincts for distress. They looked after their own, and she was not one of them, not really. Not that she wanted to be.

"He knew Methos. He knew … so much." Pierson's long hands were pressed flat on the table, shaking, the incongruously pink memo-sheet crumpled beneath his fingers. Words seemed to fail him, and his eyes didn't see her at all. In the expanding quiet, everyone in the archive seemed to be gathering. Frau Trude – excuse me, _Fraulein Doctor_ Trude – coaxed the memo out from under Adam's hand and bent to read it. 

The slight movement seemed to bring him back to the present. "Who was it? Who took him?" His voice cracked. " _How?_ "

His distress was palpable. She took an involuntary step back. "No one. I mean, not an Immortal. There wasn't a Quickening." The old biddies were all there now, clustered close. Fraulein Doctor Trude had a hand on Pierson's shoulder. His face was the color of chalk. He looked as though he would be sick, or fall over in a faint. Not what she'd been expecting, this depth of emotion. Not cute at all. No wonder he was in research rather than the field, if the mere news of something like this could affect him like that. She began to wonder why she hadn't just let the whole lot of them find the news in their inboxes. So much for her plan to get the charming, cute and terminally shy Dr Pierson to take her to lunch; she'd thought he'd enjoy the chance to get out of the fusty archives, and the news had just been an excuse to approach him. He hadn't even glanced at her (very flattering) new blouse. Maybe Joan was right and he was gay. Which would really be a shame. 

Marie Moulet spoke into the appalled silence. "No Quickening, Jillian? You mean he was just … lost? All that knowledge, all that history, just … gone?"

"Thackeray was bad enough to lose like that, but Darius? Who will be next? This is an outrage." Jillian didn't think she'd ever heard Seshadri voice an opinion before. 

This was much more reaction than she had any idea she was letting herself in for. Lighten up people, it's their thing. They get offed every day. Ok, so Darius was one of the 'good guys', but really, he was only an immie, not a real person. "Well, Peters thinks the church may have gotten the Quickening. But that's Peters for you." She ventured a laugh, uncomfortable.

The sally fell flat. Researchers. No sense of humor at all.

"The church? What do you mean?" Fraulein Doctor Trude always reminded her of her least favorite school-teacher, the one who had insisted on proper posture and grammar and manners no matter what. She made Jillian feel like she was a grubby ten-year-old. The look she was getting now made her feel not so much grubby but more like a bug on a card. She didn't like it. 

Again she tried for lightness. "St. Julien's. That's where MacLeod found him. Bancroft's finishing up the Closing Report even as we speak. It's not like he ever left the place. Even that business with Grayson didn't draw him out." 

They looked at her, shocked, unsmiling. Pierson extracted himself from Trude's comfort and was at the window in one long stride, his back to the room. She hadn't realized he was really that tall, or that his shoulders were so broad. The hazy light haloed him, turning him into a silhouette against the glass, his raptor's nose for once not ridiculous. His voice, when he finally spoke again, made her shiver unaccountably.

"Holy Ground. You are saying that _mortals_ took Darius' head on _Holy Ground_? And not just any holy ground, but _in his own church?_ " The very flatness of his voice was frightening. His knuckles were white, fingers clenched on the stone of the windowsill. Who would have thought mere researchers would care so much?

But obviously they did care. She was uncomfortably aware of them surrounding her. 

"Darius was an anchor, a stabilizing force in the Immortal world. His light brought others out of darkness. Mortals and Immortals both." Maria's voice was soft, and tears glittered on her cheeks. "He was a _priest_. He should have been _safe_!" Sesh pressed a handkerchief into the girl's hand. "And for MacLeod to have been the one to find him! He's going to be _devastated_." Marie buried her face in the proffered cloth. Sesh was patting her back for heaven's sake.

You'd think that they'd been personally violated, or they'd been witness to a desecration or something from the way they were carrying on. Though, she supposed, whatever else he had been, Darius had been a priest, and killing a priest in a church was pretty much the definition of desecration. And by all accounts MacLeod and Darius had been close. It would be pretty horrible to find a friend really, finally, dead like that. Still, it wasn't like it was actually personal for any of the researchers. 

"But why does it matter so much? You make it sound so personal. They're only immies." Even if they were both 'good guys'. And she had to admit, Duncan was more than a little on the decorative side.

A completely different kind of silence spread out over the room. 

"No. Darius was a _person_. Thackeray was a _person_. Duncan MacLeod and Hugh FitzCairn are _people_. Human beings, just like you and me. If you can't wrap your mind around that concept, then maybe you should think about what that says about you." Ekaterin had been at the Academy with her, a self-effacing mouse. Jillian had never expected to be the target of her ire. 

Pierson spoke from where he stood at the window, and the note that made her shiver was still in his voice. "This changes the Game. It is something that cannot be, _will not be_ ignored."

"Ignored by the Immortals or ignored by us?" Jillian found herself saying, hating the nervousness she heard in her voice. They were so serious, so obviously convinced this was a truly bad thing. A cold worm of discomfort began to coil in her belly. What if they were right to worry? She tried to push the feeling away. Immies couldn't be real people, not really. But what if they were?

The look Ekaterin gave her was not very friendly, but at least it wasn't the scathing anger of a moment ago. Pierson answered, though he still wasn't looking at her. "Either. Both. And mortals have no part in the Game."

Trude's voice was as certain and unyielding, "The Highlander has friends, and he has never been one to stand idly by when he thinks something should be done."

Now there was a truly frightening thought. Jillian shivered, feeling very alone and uncertain for a moment.

Finally, Adam was looking at her, a gaze that seemed to see right into her, like she was a document of dubious provenance, or written by an unreliable source. It made her uncomfortable, but she couldn't entirely deny the feeling that it wasn't an inaccurate assessment. "Thank you for letting us know, Jillian." There was still a note of grief in his voice, and in the stark light from the window he looked both young and ageless. Unapproachable, at least by her. 

"Thank you, Miss O'Hara." No question that Trude disapproved of her, but that was nothing new. "I'm sure you have duties of your own to attend to." That was an unmistakable dismissal. Jillian was just as glad to go.

As she left the archive, she looked back through the archway. Trude was a good head shorter than Pierson, but somehow the sight of her comforting him was not at all incongruous. She felt an unfamiliar knot in her chest. They – all the researchers – were united in their grief, and that grief was real. Maybe there was something in what Adam had said, and not only had the Game been changed, but all of them, herself included, had lost something irreplaceable and of incalculable value. 

Certainly, she knew she had lost all chance of getting any further with Adam Pierson.


End file.
